JP2005-271909A discloses a known cable routing method for connecting plural feed cables to an electric motor mounted to a driving wheel of a vehicle. According to the known method disclosed in JP2005-271909A, the plural feed cables descending from an upper arm of the vehicle are retained to be stored in a wiring box (hereinafter referred to as a terminal block) formed at an outer periphery of a motor housing of the electric motor. Although details of an inside of the terminal block is not referred to in JP2005-271909A, a terminal formed at an end portion of the feed cable and a terminal of a stator coil of the electric motor are electrically connected each other by most likely jointly fastening the terminals to the terminal block by means of a bolt.
For the purpose of avoiding the cables from interfering with other parts of the vehicle, cable routings are restricted by various conditions. In case of arranging the cable for the electric motor, an approaching direction of the cable to the electric motor has been limited. Thus, arrangements of each of the feed cables when retaining end portions of the plural feed cables which approach the electric motor to the terminal block has also been limited to particular arrangements.
On the other hand, viewing from a standpoint of the electric motor, because the stator coils are arranged circumferentially, plural terminals of the stator coils connected to the cables are consequently arranged in different directions from the arrangement of the end portion of the feed cable retained at the terminal block. Differences of the arrangement direction (orientation) of the end portion of the feed cable and the terminal of the stator coil are compensated by using a bus bar on the terminal block.
According to the known device, in a case where the terminal of the retained feed cable and the coil terminal of the electric motor are electrically connected each other by jointly fastening the terminals by the bolt on the terminal block, a shear stress and a bending stress are applied to the terminal block, and the terminal block has to be increased in size in order to reduce damage or deformation of the terminal block by the stresses.
Further, in a case where the terminal of the feed cable and the terminal of the coil are connected via the bus bar, or the like, the size of the terminal block is further increased to accommodate a bolt, or the like, to connect the bus bar to the terminal of the feed cable and the terminal of the coil and a manufacturing cost is increased in response to an increase of the number of components.
Those drawbacks are assumed to be more critical in a case where electrically conductive dimensions of each member are increased in order to supply a large current to the electric motor.
A need thus exists for an electric motor having a wire connection structure and a wire connection method for the same which is not susceptible to the drawback mentioned above.